In the debate over building new runways in the UK, we are getting a lot of new answers - to the wrong questions. A huge lobbying effort has successfully changed the argument from whether we need more tarmac for more flights to how many new runways we need and where should they be laid.

The turbo-charge to the lobbying comes from the prospect of short-term economic growth, sought at any cost by the government. In contrast, the issue of the heavy and fast growing impact of aviation emissions on climate change has faded like a vapour trail in the hurricane force PR campaign.

The fundamental problem is that aviation is a rogue industry, darting across international borders to escape climate justice. While paying lip service to environmental concerns, its masters use the complexity of attempting to curb the carbon emissions of a global business to avoid any curbs at all.

With aviation an outlaw, it's impossible to say exactly what number of flights would be compatible with the UK's pledge to cut 80% of the greenhouse gases driving global warming by 2050. The harder other industries are pushed to cut carbon, the more headroom there would be for aviation.

But there is plenty of flak available to down the high-flying claims of the aviation industry, such as arguing that its emissions are a tiny part of total emissions. Aviation made up 6% of UK emissions in 2011 but will make up at least 25% of the total in 2050. What happens with aviation will have a huge influence on whether the UK keeps its climate promises, particularly because it will rely on fossils fuels for decades to come.

Another claim is that new capacity is desperately needed to avert economic catastrophe. Yet, as George Monbiot has pointed out, business flights to and from the UK have fallen by 25% since 2000 and make up just 12% of flights. Furthermore, London is already already miles ahead of any competitors: it is the busiest city in the world for flights and has at least double the number of flights to business destinations than any competitor.

The number of flights may well be able to increase in future, if emissions are offset by more efficient planes and air traffic control systems and are part of a national carbon budget. But with many UK airports, particularly Stansted, very underused, the argument for new runways is shaky at best. There is also little sane reason why so many slots at London airports should be taken up by flights to such exotic locations as Manchester and Edinburgh: short haul flights only add up because the outlaws of aviation pay no tax at all on their fuel nor VAT on their tickets and complain bitterly about air passenger duty.

Local environmental problems of noise and air pollution will, rightly, rank high among objections to specific plans. But it is the global problem of climate change that is fundamental.

So far the aviation industry has cleverly used the global nature of the problem to avoid action. You can't act nationally or regionally, they say, because you'll just displace the planes and airports somewhere else: it's global action or nothing and the latter is the less bumpy ride, thank you very much.

But this will change, I think. Aviation will be brought under national and regional carbon caps as progress continues on international action on climate change.

When the permissible emissions come to be divided up between flights, farming, factories and fuelling the UK, it's quite possible that soaring emissions from aviation are not seen as the top priority. At that point, any new runways will stand only as multi-billion-dollar monuments to the hubris of an industry accustomed to operating without constraints.